As Liberal MPs Urge Shift to ‘Centre,’ Where Will Party Land on the Political Spectrum?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the Liberal caucus during a meeting on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 17, 2024. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick

News Analysis

Mere moments after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared his intention to resign on Jan. 6, the many Liberal MPs who appeared in media interviews—free of caucus restraint to speak their minds for the first time—said they wanted a return to the centre.

How this desired centre is defined remains elusive. And ultimately, the party’s ideological direction will depend on the new leader’s approach.

“We’ve got to reboot. We need to move the party more to the middle, more centrist. We have to look at some of the policies that have certainly driven Canadians away from us,” New Brunswick MP Wayne Long—the first Liberal MP to have called publicly in 2024 for Trudeau to resign—told CTV on Jan. 6. He didn’t elaborate on what those policies are or how he thinks the party could become centrist.

Toronto MP Rob Oliphant noted that as a United Church minister, he is viewed as being “on the left side and on the social progressive side,” but the change he wants to see relates to the economy. “We need a strong fiscal responsibility, and we need that resilience in our economy,” he told CBC on Jan. 6.

The focus on “fiscal responsibility” has been mentioned by other Liberal MPs as well, including Ontario MP Charles Sousa on Jan. 8. “As we go forward, I think Canadians want us to continue to look at ways to support their priorities while also being fiscally responsible,” Sousa said, according to CTV.

Toronto MP Judy Sgro, who said the party’s assistance programs are important but so is fiscal responsibility, commented that the party had moved too far to the left in recent years as it struck a supply-and-confidence deal with the NDP.

“It really leaned us far to the left, and at that time I was very skeptical of making a deal with the NDP and what it’s going to cost us, and I think in some ways it’s costing us this election,” Sgro told CTV on Jan. 6. “We absolutely have to get back to the centre.”

But for Ontario MP Helena Jaczek—a Trudeau government cabinet minister until 2023 who joined the public voices for his ouster in 2024—the programs that were the basis of getting NDP’s support for the minority Liberal government were among the main highlights. “In the last year, we have brought in some very progressive programs—dental care for seniors, the beginning of pharmacare,” Jaczek told CTV on Jan. 6.

Former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien told the network in early January that the party needs to move back to the “radical centre” because “it is what has been the Liberal Party all along.”

Liberal-appointed Sen. Percy Downe, who was chief of staff to Chrétien, told the Toronto Star last year that Trudeau has taken the party too far to the left, pointing out how Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in the House of Commons in November 2023 that he is a “proud socialist.”

Regardless of what some former and current Liberal MPs may say about the party’s direction, for the at least 80-plus members of the 153-strong Liberal caucus who have thrown their support behind leadership front-runner Mark Carney, his vision is what they presumably endorse. Carney by far has the highest cabinet and Liberal MP endorsements among the leadership contenders.

Carney’s Vision

During his campaign launch speech in Edmonton on Jan. 16, Carney said the country couldn’t achieve its full potential with the “ideas of the far-left.”

Mark Carney, candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, speaks during a news conference in Vancouver, on Feb. 13, 2025. The Canadian Press/Ethan Cairns

The former central banker has emphasized on the campaign trail that his focus is the economy. He has said that besides tackling the issue of U.S. tariffs, he’d reduce taxes for the middle class, work on removing interprovincial trade barriers, and cut government spending to balance the budget, promising to only take on debt that helps to grow the economy.

He has said he supports an Energy East-type pipeline to bring oil from the West to Eastern Canada—an idea that the current Liberal government had rejected—while defending the Impact Assessment Act as having the provisions required to expedite projects. The act has been dubbed the “no more pipelines act” by Alberta.

On the social and cultural axis of the spectrum, like the Trudeau government, Carney has put an emphasis on “inclusiveness” and said fighting climate change is a major focus.

“While America engages in a war on woke, Canadians will continue to value inclusiveness,” he said in Windsor, Ont., on Feb. 5.

In one part of Carney’s main campaign video featured on his website, where he criticizes rival Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader is shown walking with veteran James Topp on the last stretch of Topp’s cross-Canada walk, in Ottawa in June 2022, to protest vaccine mandates for the military. In a later section of the video, Carney says he is a Liberal because “Liberals believe people are free to make their own choices.” This suggests that Carney sides with the Liberal government’s pandemic mandates and rejects the Opposition’s view that they infringed on personal choice amid the public health crisis.

Carney, formerly the U.N. special envoy on climate action and finance, has said climate change policies will be a major part of his focus should he become leader. While most of his policy proposals have been made in interviews or rally speeches, one of the few policy-focused videos he has released is about his climate change policy. His proposal on this file includes ending the politically costly consumer carbon tax and replacing it with an incentive program that rewards people for making “green choices,” while transferring more costs for emissions to major businesses.

When announcing his intention to resign on Jan. 6, Trudeau said the next Liberal leader will carry “the progressive Liberal standard” into the next election.

Carney was asked during a Feb. 16 CBC interview about his appointment by Trudeau last year as an economic adviser and also about the Conservatives’ comments that he is going to be much the same as the outgoing prime minister. Carney responded that he has the same values as Trudeau but that their “focus” is different.

“I focus on the economy. He has had a different focus for Canada,” Carney said. “I’m a goalie, he’s a snowboarder. I have lots of experience in the business world. I’ve provided some advice to this government; quite often they didn’t take it.”

An Angus Reid survey conducted Feb. 13–18 indicates the Liberals closing the previously two-digit gap with the Conservatives with Carney as a potential leader. That change could be partially attributed to the Tories losing some support from their high of 45 percent in December to 40 percent in mid-February. However, what mainly appears to be accounting for the rise in Liberal support from 16 percent in December to 37 percent in mid-February is NDP voters switching their votes to Liberal under Carney. The poll shows support for the left-wing NDP in the same period dropping from 21 percent to 10 percent. The left-leaning Quebec sovereigntist Bloc Québécois also fell from 11 percent support to 7 percent during that period.

Freeland and Gould

Former Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal leadership contender Chrystia Freeland in a file photo. The Canadian Press/Patrick Doyle

Perhaps the most publicly detailed account from any Liberal MP defining what they want to see as the centre is from an op-ed penned by Montreal MP Anthony Housefather and Toronto MP Yvan Baker shortly after Trudeau said he would resign following the selection of a new Liberal leader.

“As centrists we have and will continue to advocate for pragmatic policies that will earn the support of a broad coalition of Canadians,” they wrote in the National Post on Jan. 9.

Among the items they want to see the party adopt as part of this vision are “unapologetically showing pride in being Canadian” and rejecting Trudeau’s declaration that Canada is a “post-national state”; focusing on trade and establishing good relations with the United States while aligning closely with Washington on foreign policy; and prioritizing economic growth and regulating what “needs regulation” while avoiding “unnecessary trade barriers and bureaucracy.”

Housefather and Baker also want the party to practise fiscal responsibility while lowering taxes; protect health care and social safety net programs, including dental care, child care, pensions, and housing programs; and ensure public safety. In addition, they want the Liberals to restore “integrity” to the immigration system and require that those coming to Canada “respect the values we hold as Canadians”; protect the Jewish community given the rise of anti-Semitism; ensure a secure border and meet NATO’s spending requirements in the face of hostile regimes such as China and Russia; and avoid “alienating groups by attacking them.”

Both MPs have endorsed former Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland for leader. Freeland’s main campaign promises so far, besides her approach to confront U.S. tariffs, have been eliminating the consumer carbon tax, abandoning the capital gains tax changes, tying the number of new immigrants to housing availability, offering financial incentives to bring Canadian doctors and nurses practising in the United States back to Canada, supporting an Energy East-type pipeline project and liquid natural gas exports while keeping focus on “clean tech” innovation, meeting NATO spending requirements, removing interprovincial trade barriers, reducing the size of cabinet, and addressing foreign interference.

Freeland has condemned anti-Semitism, which both Baker and Housefather have called for, but hasn’t touched on the cultural aspects such as rejection of the post-national state doctrine.

The Angus Reid survey says the NDP voter shift to Liberal is less so with Freeland as the hypothetical leader than with Carney. With Freeland as leader, support for the NDP falls from 21 percent in late December to 16 percent in mid-February, whereas with Carney as leader, support for the NDP falls from 21 percent to 10 percent. With Freeland, the survey suggests that the Liberals have 29 percent support in mid-February, still a considerable rise from their 16 percent in December but significantly lower than the 37 percent the Liberals would have under Carney.

Leadership contender Karina Gould, also a former cabinet minister, appears to be comparatively more on the left with her campaign promises. Instead of ending the consumer carbon tax, she has said she would pause the hike scheduled for this year, bring back electric vehicle and home retrofit rebates, raise corporate taxes by 2 percent for firms making over $500 million, cut the GST to 4 percent, drop the capital gains tax changes, meet NATO spending requirements, scale up cooperative housing, and modernize the social safety net.

On the cultural side, she has noted on the campaign trail that she joined the party at a very young age and that it’s been the young members who have brought about policies such as legalizing same-sex marriage and the legalization of marijuana.

Former cabinet minister and Liberal leadership candidate Karina Gould makes an announcement in Ottawa on Jan. 30, 2025. The Canadian Press/Spencer Colby

Shifts

Jacqueline Biollo, a principal with Aurora Strategy Group, says how a desired centre is defined will vary across Canada given each region’s unique circumstances and needs.

“[What is defined as a] centralist is very different as you move across the map of Canada,” Biollo said in an interview.

Part of the ambiguity could also be due to people finding dramatic shifts in ideological leanings, such as progressive or conservative, that they previously identified with, says a study by Abacus.

“Rather than fitting neatly into ‘progressive’ or ‘conservative’ boxes, or on a left-right spectrum, Canadians hold complex and sometimes contradictory beliefs, blending progressive economic preferences with cultural caution, or vice versa,” says the survey of 1,500 Canadians conducted Dec. 4–8 last year.

As an example, the study cites people who historically preferred more government control in social safety net areas—such as health care and public education—putting them on the traditional left side of the spectrum, but who are now “not ready to embrace every new cultural shift without reservation.”

Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague says the Liberal Party has historically been a group trying to find the “middle ground” and build consensus to bring the country together. But that has now changed, he says, noting that pro-life candidates like himself are no longer welcome in the party. Trudeau said in 2014 that candidates seeking Liberal nominations can’t hold pro-life views.

“If you happen to be Catholic, pro-life—gone. … If you didn’t agree with the climate agenda, you were ostracized,” McTeague said in an interview, adding that he hasn’t seen any sign of change.

“Liberalism used to accept social security but rejected socialism. Yet here we have several members, avowed socialists, not understanding it.”